Sometimes finding the right strategic partner is like looking for a new romance in a bar. The key to success is finding points of affinity upon which to build a relationship, whether for the rest of the evening or for a lifetime.
This is a second of a series of posts about common mistakes law firms...

My partner, Lisa M. Walker Johnson , has recently written two articles applying counseling psychology to two important challenges to law firm management.
Until Death...or Retirement: Thinking Differently About the End of a Law Firm Career
This is a pioneering consideration of how a trend toward...

My colleagues and I at Walker Clark, LLC, occasionally encounter a law firm that should be much more successful than it is.
It has all of the ingredients:
Smart, experienced lawyers
Admirable dedication to the client
An almost religious devotion to professional excellence
A strong work...

In the past few weeks a number of our firm's clients have asked me what our firm thinks about the economic outlook for the United States in 2011.
I have to be less than optimistic about 2011. As Paul Krugman pointed out in his column in yesterday's New York Times , the U.S. economy is still...

Associate profitability could be the most important management issue for many - maybe even most - law firms over the next three to five years. One of the central features of law firms that have managed to increase profits against declining fee revenues has been a serious inquiry into the profitability...

The new year brings an upsurge in risky business.
To hire a partner from another law firm is one of the riskiest decisions that lawyers and law firms make. As we begin the new year we are already observing an upsurge in lateral recruiting and hiring of law firm partners. This is the time when partners...

I was recently asked about the improvements that law firms can expect to achieve when they establish a serious quality assurance program.
"Does all this quality stuff really produce results?"
We need to be clear that quality assurance is not just a lot of slogans or exhortations to the...

This is a the second in a series of nine posts about successful - and profitable - innovation in law firms.
As readers of this blog already have observed, Walker Clark, LLC, takes a strong risk-management approach to many aspects of law firm strategy and management. However, we also recognize that...

This is the fifth in a series of nine postings about successful innovation in law firms. Today we look at the third secret of successful innovation.
Write a conservative plan.
Conservative - even skeptical - planning might seem to be antithetical to concepts of energetic innovation; but it is actually...